


The Weight of Grief

by blankie



Series: Alex Misses his Mom [1]
Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grieving, One Shot, Parental Death, Short One Shot, this is really just projection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-15 17:29:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19622731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blankie/pseuds/blankie
Summary: Sometimes, Alex misses his mom so much it hurts.





	The Weight of Grief

Sometimes, Alex misses his mom so much it hurts. 

He loves his grandparents and he wouldn’t give them up for the world, but he can’t help but feel like he’s missing out on something. Like there’s a hole in his life with ragged edges that brushes painfully up against everything he does, but for the life of him he can’t remember what is supposed to go there. He doesn’t have many friends in Stardew Valley, but he sometimes overhears others his age talking. Telling stories about how their mom’s helped them with this or that, or how  _ annoying _ they are. Once, Haley tells him that she’s glad her parents left to travel - she says their hovering and worrying was  _ annoying _ , and Alex has to leave the room after that. He knows it’s not right of him to be angry, people’s relationships with their parents aren’t his business and they aren’t always great, but he can’t help but be furious. He would give  _ anything _ to have one more  _ second _ with his mom; how could Haley say she was  _ glad _ her’s were gone? 

It’s been so long since Alex’s mom died that he’s starting to forget things - the way she smelled, what her laugh sounded like. In fact, he’s lived longer without her than he did with her, and that’s something he can’t stand to think about. As his memories of her fade he scrambles to hold on to any facts he can. He hoards them like a starving mouse hoards crumbs - they’re always small, insignificant, and usually something simple, like what her favourite colour was or where she had her first job. But to Alex they’re everything. He  _ resents _ the people who know these things because they always keep it to themselves, only barely sprinkling them into conversation so he has to be on guard to catch them. It feels like they’re keeping him from her, secreting away his mom and keeping her to themselves. Alex wants to scream at them, “ _ Please, I just want my mom” _ . But he can’t.

All he wants is to tell someone about it - to be able to say “I miss my mom” and be met with comfort, not pity or quiet resentment for giving words to the unspoken grief that follows around everyone who knew her. Evelyn and George won’t talk about her, it makes them too sad. Alex simultaneously respects this and resents this - his grandparents are all he has, shouldn’t he be able to go to them for help? But then he feels guilty, because he knows all too well what it feels like to miss his mom. Anyone who  _ didn’t  _ know her is out of the question too. Alex hates the reaction he gets from strangers when he tells them his mom’s dead - it’s always awkwardness and pity, sometimes quiet resentment for making them deal with his shit. As if it’s  _ Alex’s _ fault that he has a dead mom - it’s  _ his  _ problem, how dare he bring others into it. So, Alex keeps his emotions and thoughts all piled up in one heavy weight - like that which Atlas carried. Sometimes it feels like it’s suffocating him, all the words he’s never spoken. But Alex keeps trudging forward, because there is no alternative. 

Talking to the farmer helps some. They don’t react like he expects them to - there’s no pity in their eyes or awkwardness in their tone. Instead they listen to his mom’s music box (the only thing he has left of her) with him. They tell him she’d be proud, and that he can always talk to them. Somehow, he believes them, and the prospect of losing some of this weight that he’s been carrying around brings tears to his eyes. Time doesn’t always heal wounds, but maybe it’s not hopeless after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> this is unedited and will probably never be edited 
> 
> im kind of having a bad day and decided to take it out on alex, bc dead mom solidarity


End file.
